BA Sound Arts Year 3

Month: December 2022

Categories
Porfolio

Reflective sound gathering via New England soundscape project (reflection)

Daniel A. Walzer

https://soundstudiesblog.com/category/acoustic-ecology/page/9/ (Link to Journal)

I decided to look at the word document Milo gave us With further research into work that relates to our project and practice. I ended up first looking through Sound Studies Blog and found this piece in the acoustic ecology section by Daniel A. Walzer.

Daniel reflects on his current journey in field recording around the USA, a funded project by his university. He describes this essay as a new awakening to his new creative recording process. It’s an ongoing mission for him. 

He’s travelling across the USA with small digital recorders paired with microphones and other apparatus for him to collect sounds with. Daniel speaks about his “curiosity—to record brief moments through New England’s rich coastal, urban and rural landscapes across six U.S. states.” Something I myself have felt like a dream to do. Now curiosity is a great word to use, I think with our modern lives there is this separation from the nonhuman that has given some people a godlike status and very human-centric ideas about our existence. 

“I came to believe that a holistic method of field recording offered me certain advantages—enabling an emerging sound artist to detach from rigidly defined agendas and instead focus on reflection, deep breathing, environmental awareness, gratitude, and an observational spirit. The listening exercises I detail in this post made me a newly introspective practitioner—one capable of a heightened sensitivity that improved my production and composition skills across multiple media.”

This quote really struck me. I think there is a general idea that field recordings are an accurate representation of an environment, or perhaps they aren’t. Artists such as Peter Cusack use field recordings as works within themselves and not as content to use in other contexts. But I think Daniel makes a great interesting point here about holistic recording. Something I hadn’t considered before, is the idea that understanding requires a whole picture. Trying to understand through listening and recording and not just the microtonal as well as reflection, environmental awareness and gratitude. It reminds me of my own practice in field recording and that way I approach it as well. For me when I field record, the trip and the act of doing is most of the time more important than the outcome, interestingly enough I’d never consider It a holistic activity but now looking at it from Daniels’s description he couldn’t be more correct.

Daniel also discusses the end goal of practice-based work, something I myself find struggle with. How does one create something that ends? He speaks on how he found it difficult to discover a defined ending to his project. How would it be shown and displayed? As an ethnographic audio piece? Similar to my ideas with my Stave Hill Project.

These questions were what he asked himself when in the field.

  • What kind of project is this?
  • How is the sound to be used?
  • Where and how will the project be displayed?
  • Who is the intended audience?
  • What are the sound artist’s intentions?
  • What tools are needed?

I think his reflection that this sort of work requires, “diverse, fluid and balances technical, artistic and theoretical aims” is a good way of thinking. I consider field recordings to also do more or less the same. 

Daniel further discusses that sound work it doesn’t have the conventional ways of working that other audio production pieces have, and he found this framework worked for him.

“For me, framing a detached and perceptive mindset involved:

  • Remaining sensitive to my surroundings at each location;
  • Focusing on stillness, deep breathing, and a quiet mind while recording;
  • Adopting a respectful, unobtrusive manner at each site—taking care not to disrupt or distract others;
  • Calmly monitoring my technology and its use;
  • Trusting that I am intended to be in that exact moment at that exact time;
  • Avoiding being overly concerned with the “end game” of their practice;
  • Embracing the role of a sound gatherer and observer;”

Again I found huge similarities between his frame works and my own, I’m curious perhaps if should create my own rules when field recording. Especially within this project at Stave Hill. How can I critically look at my own work and attempt to create a framework that doesn’t cross boundaries that can make me counter intuitive of my own work?

Lastly, Daniel speaks on the art of meditative listening, something I also do within my field recording practice. When I go to field recording sometimes I go a whole trip without speaking, trying to remain silent and be aware of my surroundings, almost as if I am on a permanent sound walk. I think this idea to listen with empathy from Melia (practitioner speaks)

Lastly, he finished with the idea that healing and a deeper connection to our environments through listening can improve mental health and empathy amongst groups of humans and nonhumans in our environments.

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Porfolio

Sound Unbound | Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky | Talks at Google

I listened to parts of this talk at google with DJ Spooky promoting his new book sound unbound which I’ve read recently. He discusses the themes in the book, the idea of the gift economy and sampling as a way of reusing and bringing alive the archive. To consider the past as a way of expanding on knowledge and showing others other work in a new life.

He also discusses the ideas of fragments within sampling. The small pieces make up a larger idea and form. He displays a visual example of what sampling could be, 1915 fragmentation animation. Sampling is a small piece within a large product.

The cultural value within sharing music for free are themes that he speaks on, I am curious how artists are supposed to survive? How can the money be made to survive in capitalism as an artist? 

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Porfolio

Mariam Rezaei Turntable Improv Dialogues Festival 2021 (reflection)

I kept looking into other artists within the sound art world around sampling and Rory directed me towards Mariam Renzaei.

I watched this performance of hers at the Dialogues festival in 2021 where she improvises with two turntables as instruments. 

I find her use of turntables and the effects to be really captivating and meditative. The experience feels almost generative and alongside the VJX effects through iPhone gives you a euphoric sensation. I can’t tell if she is using real vinyl or control vinyl that lets you perform audio from the computer and use a blank vinyl with white noise as the control surface for it. It reminds me of the artist Nik Nak who also does similar things with turntables and turntablism as her choice of performance. I could consider attempting the same? For one of my projects next year could I purchase Brazilian vinyl and perform them differently than how they are usually heard? Or purchase some control vinyl and attempt to do something similar to this with the audio on my computer?

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Porfolio

Graham Lambkin – Amateur Doubles (research into)

Continuing off from the last post I’m continuing to look into other pieces of work that include sampling. This piece is titled Amateur doubles by Graham Lambkin. 

Graham records a car journey through America, recording the ambience of the car, the people and conversations within it and the audio. He then cuts up and splices the audio in a music concretè type fashion to create a 39-minute runtime album that explores this area of sound arts. Reusing sounds in different contexts. 

I found the drone-like sounds in his compositions and the occasional voices to be haunting. The cheap-sounding synth with strange lead compositions plays over the top and I’m not sure if I enjoy that. I think maybe without these keys playing it would be a more interesting-sounding piece. Currently, it feels like he just decided to play over it? 

So in terms of reflectional elements, I think music concrete is one outlook I should consider when doing my other two pieces using musical elements and perhaps other things that incorporate within my culture? Re contextualise ordinary sounds within Brazil?

Categories
Porfolio

First Document Proposal writing (draft)

I’ve decided to do the first draft of my ideas so far on what I want to do for my main two portfolio pieces. Here is my current proposal document. I will update this next week as well.

I will refine this proposal a bit more over the next week or two. I’m also struggling to get my timeline information to fit on the table created so I’m waiting on a reply back on how to get around this issues.

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Porfolio

[AHMED] AND THE LEGACY OF AHMED ABDUL-MALIK (reflection)

Ecka sent me an email with this podcast saying that this might help my research with my whole sampling/music recontextualising project I have in mind for next year’s portfolio work.

I listened to the whole podcast which discusses the legacy of Ahmed Abdul Malik and 

“his idea of strangeness in jazz and how theory around the history of the form, linking past and future. In this podcast, we hear excerpts from Edward’s talk alongside an interview with pianist Pat Thomas and saxophonist Seymour Wright who discuss the legacy of Abdul-Malik, the history of jazz and its roots in the Islamic communities of West Africa.”

I really enjoyed this podcast and the discussion of jazz as a sharing of knowledge, versions within versions. Taking others’ ideas and adding onto them. Taking others’ sounds and making them their own. Music is a way of knowledge and performing as communication. Jazz and the development within itself as sampling and sharing, the gift of free knowledge.

https://counterflows.com/podcast/ahmed-and-the-legacy-of-ahmed-abdul-malik/
Website to the Podcast

This does make me consider my own sampling uses, how can I show knowledge through my own work? What am I trying to convey, how am I communicating and how does it come across to the listener? 

Categories
Porfolio

Ethical questions about working with soundscapes (reflection)

After looking through Norient for interesting articles about acoustic ecology I discovered this post that sent me to a website called soundwalkinginteractions. The website had an essay titled.

Ethical questions about working with soundscapes

By Dr Andra McCartney

Andra starts the introduction to her essay with numerous questions about what a soundscape composer or documentarian is doing when recording or using sounds once separated from the context they were recorded in. She discusses that relationships through the world are expressed through the soundscape.

“Does the maker want to reveal particular sonic aspects of the place as it is, as it used to be, as it might be? Does the composer want to create an ideal place through sound and if so, what are the characteristics of this imaginary place and what ideas and values inform this utopic creation? How does the composer treat the sounds? How prominent are the composer’s treatments in relation to the sounds originally heard in that place, and what are the characteristics of this electroacoustic ecology? What are the dominant and masked sounds in the piece and how do they interact? “

I think this brings out the true questions that can come into a designer’s head when using soundscape recordings within their work, how can we answer these questions? And if we can’t how can we be aware of these questions. At least critically consider our practice and attempt to question our own decisions. 

An important point made is the idea between what is heard in the place and the recording. But I also consider Wright (2022) when speaking about the importance of what isn’t heard. I think there is an importance between what isn’t heard and what is heard.

“Do we imagine the listener is ignorant and needing enlightenment?” 

I think a lot of art should consider this at times, are the points we are making painfully obvious? What different outlook are we bringing that perhaps others haven’t seen? Or if we are bringing up ideas that have previously been presented how can present a different outlook.

Andra then begins to discuss the fascination with hi-fi-like sounds that are obsessed with current field recording practice. The idea is that sound that is accurate and individual to the rest of the soundscape is a true representation, with a concentration on little circuit noise and contextual noise blocked. 

They argue that perhaps we have become obsessed with the idea of purity, and then they use a quote by Emily Thompson who discusses that since sound has become a signal we have valued the idea of the signal-to-noise ratio as important. That we judge sound by the recorded notion of what one is hearing. The level and strength, the clean pre-amplification and other aspects of recordings are to be seen as the best forms of representations. That the more hi-fi a product is the better it is.

“When sounds became signals, a new criterion by which to evaluate them was established, a criterion whose origins, like the sounds themselves, were located in the new electrical technologies. Electrical systems were evaluated by measuring the strength of their signals against the inevitable encroachments of electrical noise, and this measure now became the means by which to judge all sounds. The desire for clear, controlled, signal-like sound became pervasive, and anything that interfered with this goal was now engineered out of existence.”

Andra continues to discuss the idea of the romanticised need to escape noisy life, to return to the wilderness of course for those who can afford it. That we need time away for our ears to heal from the abuse of noise pollution. And the comparisons with visuals arts to the hi-fi notion within soundscapes. 

“By referring to the HiFi soundscape as an example of an ecological soundscape, are we shaping soundscape studies through a particularly northern and isolationist framework? Is this what we want?”

Andra, speaks on hi-fi systems in the 1940s-1950s when they were first produced, and they were first marketed as a way for the hi-fi enthusiast to escape the noise of the family, the kids and noise pollution. That comfort could be found with a nice HiFi system. This led the users to even eventually start purchasing vinyl records of different sorts, including the sounds of rain and thunder. 

“Some hi-fiers, rather than immerse themselves in operatic or chamber music, or even rock ‘n’ roll, listen for the joy of just “hearing” sounds not likely to be found in the average living room” (Jacobs 1958, p. 33)”

There are also ideas shown that lofi soundscapes are noisy and loud ambiences but hifi soundscapes are associated with the sparse wilderness and rural locations. As well as the natural balance between both being important. There were tests done on prisoners in the 1800s in prisons where they were sonically isolated and found themselves going insane quickly. This was a pure hifi soundscape.

“Is it good signal to noise ratio that we are searching for, or a particular quality of silence that is comforting and inspiring, not oppressive and suffocating? Can we hear oppression or comfort or the space for inspiration within a particular hifi or quiet soundscape and how would we characterize that?”

Andra also makes a point about positive noisy situations such as a busy cafe in the morning with lots of chatty voices in the background. They also speak on the privilege of silence and hifi soundscapes. That even when one hosts a listening group you have to be able to drive and reach the location in the wilderness. 

“access to wilderness parks is the privilege of the middle class who can afford to buy or rent cars. He notes that in some cases, roads to parks were designed with bridges so low that they excluded buses, a move which explicitly kept out those who do not have cars; while in many others there are no public buses or trains that will take people directly to parks.”

“What are the possibilities of an ecotonal sounding art? What would it mean to listen for characteristics of ecotonality in a soundscape rather than searching for single clear signals devoid of problematic noise? Instead of banishing sounds that overlap and rub up against each other, what would it mean to pay attention to how sounds overlap, to how they rub up against each other, in whatever context?”

I think this last quote really sticks out to me, how can we listen for the ever-changing soundscape and the intersections where hifi and lo-fi sounds combine and shift. The importance of a combined soundscape shows a true representation of the location. I think this is relevant in challenging my previous ideas on soundscape production and my current field recordings. I think next time I go to Stave Hill I will reflect on this essay.

Categories
Visiting Practitioner Series

Visiting Practioner: Yolande Harris

Yolande Harris

This is Yolande’s bio,

Yolande Harris (UK/US) explores ideas of sonic consciousness, using sound and image to create intimate visceral experiences that heighten awareness of our relationship to the environment and other species. Her artistic projects on underwater sound encourage connection, understanding and empathy with the ocean. Yolande is associate researcher and lecturer in digital media art and electronic music at University of California Santa Cruz and lecturer in digital media art at San Jose State University. Previously Assistant Professor in film/animation/video at Rhode Island School of Design, she has held major research fellowships at Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Jan van Eyck Academy and UCLA Art|Sci Center. She presents her work internationally, including Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, the House of World Cultures Berlin, the Exploratorium in San Francisco and Ars Electronica Festival. Yolande studied at Edinburgh University, Dartington College of Arts, has an MPhil from Cambridge University and a PhD from Leiden University. 

I’m interested in sonic consciousness, what does that mean to her? How can sound become a conscious thing? Using sound and image to heighten our awareness of our environment and species is something of huge interest to me, I’m really excited to see her lecture and how she discusses these subjects.

FISHING FOR SOUND

Fishing For Sound is a stereo installation piece that creates a sea of social connections between spaces. Yolande weaves sounds from underwater, marine life and sonified navigation satellites. She compares the similarities of the intrusive background noise within all these environments and technologies. Environment, information and memory are key in this piece of work. Where listening is like fishing for sound.

I found this piece to captivate me with the visual and sonic elements together. Once again I do find myself in a situation where I do enjoy the sounds and the overall work but without further context, it’s hard to really see the defined meaning. By no means am I saying her work is bad or not active enough for my own thoughts but more that I think this sort of work becomes its full form when accompanied by further explained texts and ideas.

MINKE WHALES SURFACE THROUGH ICE

This piece of work discusses the ideas and themes of what it might feel like to be oceanic. To come from an existence of aquatic consciousness, Yolande collaborated with scientist Dr Ari Friedlaender who gave Yolande the footage of cameras attached to these whales. Yolande contributed the music, the harp and other sounds.

I found this piece to actually become a favourite of mine, simplicity really works sometimes. I see the harp and the other sounds in an almost ironic beautiful tone. Disclosing the beauty of whales surfacing and returning back. The playful nature of these animals exists in locations that are extreme difficulty to exist. Where life is difficult. The juxtaposition between the audio and the cold tough oceans these whales live in brought a smile to my face. I’m looking forward to the lecture.

Post-lecture Reflection:

Yolande begins by saying that she finds when she shares her work she’s interested in how people can experience it. What are the many ways in which an idea can be realised?

She then shows us the first piece which is a silent film, the light going through trees In a rainforest and asks us if we hear anything despite the silence. She explains that sound is more than just things we hear in our ears. Sound in relation to the other senses is an important way of thinking. The sense of sight is quite sonic in this sense, as well as colour and weather.

She was trying to build instruments back in the early 2000s when she worked in a studio in Amsterdam. The second piece she showed us was Walk in the Woods 2, they were trying different images in contrast to the first one. 

She’s interested in how our perception of the environment can change and how this relates to the environment that we are in. The imagery blends and disappears into the forest. Overlays and disappears is the technique presented.

Another piece she did was in 2009, The Pink Noise, which is about the experience of noise pollution or sounds that were happening under the water. Pristine on the surface but under the water it was filled with noise. She dropped a hydrophone under the water to discover all the yachts and other boats had filled the ocean with noise pollution. Her installation was similar, a projected floor with headphones hanging to combine both her idea and installation into one. 

This leads her to be into noise pollution and underwater sounds. It can travel further than inland and at greater speeds. And because we can’t see it there’s a sense that it’s not there. It’s the case with so many things, to make something experienceable that’s an important thing for us to do, to enable us to experience things beyond our perception. This was the start of her idea of underwater sound. 

She was also working with the ideas of navigation, she was working with early GPS work. She’s been a sailor since a young age and being a sailor and being on the ocean has been very central to her life. She was taking GPS and GPS data and making it into different maps and sounds. Looking at old style navigation styles like the sextant, she felt it was good to learn this to contrast the works. 

Working with the sextant made her create the next piece Sun Run Sun, Frankfurt 2009.

She creates an instrument that takes GPS data and the distance from the sky, including the XY axis. And they were very basic sounds because the processor couldn’t handle a lot. You would listen and walk around with the device and perform with the sonified data. 

Displaced Sound Walks, 2012 Leipzig. This explored the idea of how sound can give us a sense of place and location. The idea is she has a set of binaural microphones and a Zoom Recorder. You’re getting a very good stereo impression. You walk around for 5 minutes on a route of your own choosing and remember the route you did. You come back and sit and listen to the recordings and not move. The final step is to listen to those recordings while walking in a different location to the recorded sound walk.

It sounds incredibly simple but the reaction is interesting. They’ll hear footsteps but there is nobody there. Suddenly a bus starts and the engine begins to roar but there is no one there. Things will happen like there are phantoms or ghosts in the environment. It creates an idea of how important sound is for us in our environment.

How can our conscious listening affect the world around us? She asks this is what this project looked into

How can learning to listen to underwater sounds transform us, and transform our relationship with the environment?

I think these last two questions she asked us before finishing her lecture hit me deeply. My project from the end of the second year titled Listen to the Thames explored hydrophone recordings near Richmond Lock and the amount of noise pollution and how far sound travelled up the river gave me a different outlook that I haven’t had yet. Also Yolande’s ideas of the importance of sound in our environment and to use the human species, how we use sound to guide us towards understanding locations, spaces and environments. Perhaps I can explore the many ponds in Stave Hill and see if the noise pollution resonates in the water as much as the wind turbine?

Categories
Visiting Practitioner Series

Visiting Practioner: Antye Greie

Antye Greie

This is Antye’s bio.

AGF, poemproducer, Antye Greie-Ripatti is an artist & facilitator, sound recorder and music producer. she/her published more than 30 records, countless media projects and organizes sound interventions with others around the globe, initiated recon on rec-on.org and lectures around sound facilitation. 
 
Antye Greie-Ripatti calls herself online poemproducer, audio sculptress, performing and producing as AGF. She/her weaves deconstructed language, field recordings, low frequencies, disembodied voices, post-club aesthetics, interwoven a-rhythmical patterns into dense sonic feminist sonic technologies. 
 
Audio sculptress performing as AGF, poetess and media artist Antye Greie-Ripatti utilizes language, sound, feminist sonic technologies, politics & explores speech within the audible depths of anti-rhythmic assemblages @poemproducer  
 
AGF received the ars electronica award twice, including a grand prix. She converts poetry into electronic music, calligraphy and digital media, presented on records, live performances and soundinstallations, in museums, auditoriums, theaters, concert halls and clubs around the world. 30+ record releases under her belt. 

I’m interested to find out about her sound facilitation and what that means for her, how is she facilitating. As well as her poetry and the audio sculptress that is her. How does she use field recordings? What is a field recording for her?

Phonon-Swarming 11/22 w/ AGF

I listened to the first 15-20 minutes of this audio piece. I found the production really captivating and well-produced. The effects and automation, using voice and field recordings are very vivid and immersive. It had me hooked on the piece. I do wish her website had a bit more description for the piece, even though I enjoyed this I would have loved some context and ideas around what she is presenting. I will keep looking through more of her work.

AYLU & AGF feat Constanza Castagnet

https://rec-on.org/STRIKE!.html (Link for Audio)

I found this link on Antye Greie’s website and found it really engaging. I wish I could understand Spanish and have again the context. I see that the title discusses Listening political Sound Global. But what are the themes? The audio again is well-produced and I love the compositional elements. Perhaps in the lecture, Antye will discuss further her ideas and themes and issues in this work.

Post-Lecture Reflection:

Antye was born and raised in Germany behind the east wall. She’s never been formally trained, gone to school or studied. She lived in Berlin and now she lives on an island in the north of Finland for the last 14 years. She’s made a lot of records and she’s been thinking about CDs and things that you can put into devices. She’s made more than 30 records, and has a constant audio production practice, theatre, dance and composition for film are also huge interests of hers. Mostly she now works outside unless she can’t, doing things like fieldwork. In 2010 she started going outside and doing a residency performing music or compositions. At first, she was alone and then she realised it was more fun to do it with people than alone, she then read into the Manifesto of Rural Futurism. Beatrice ferrara & Leandro Pisano. Living rural has been part of her practice and work, overtime living in rural places and working in rural locations has become part of her practice. She then started doing a lot of sound camps and inviting artists over and organising students and sound camps for a week or 3 – 5 days and doing a lot of sounds works outside. Listening or experimenting with music in public places, in locations such as the forest or the sea and boats.

She works a lot with feminism and feminist sonic technologies. She works with covering forgotten women. Something that is constantly happening so she is constantly working on new editions, she’s worked on a sixth issue. Published, unpublished at the moment.

Sonic Wild Code. This is what she started calling these sound camps. In 2013 they did a sonic boat journey, with Ryoko Akama. They met on the island and decided to make a sound intervention and asked a local fisherman to drive them to a nuclear power plant near Finland and they were making a spell using the Geiger counter. She wants to work with others that have different skill sets.

She speaks about the current importance of her work, with this piece around nuclear power and energy and how important that is currently with the war in Ukraine, and the threat of nuclear war. And gas pipes being cut off.

She speaks about a project she did in Hanoi, Vietnam -in 2019 just before covid and there was lots of pollution and smog. They were protesting against deforestation and they did a silent protest around a tree.

She also did a camp where they built instruments for working outside, deep mycelium Is also a topic she’s interested in. 

In 2015 she heard about an artist called Kubra Khademi who walked around in a metal chest plate in Kabul and it shocked her and she googled the artist and found her online and offered her that whenever she wants to work with someone in sound she could write to her and would help, she also described her work as a feminist in Europe. She received a call from Kubra a year later and she had to flee and was lonely due to the outcome of her political art. They met in Barcelona, then they became good friends and worked on a piece called Zansuspension. 

In the last three years, she has been doing other work, thinking about composition, position and sound. She speaks about how grateful she is for having grown up in attempted socialism in the east Germany wall. She understands a lot more now and has greater context. Her intellectual work comes from a communist background, raised as a Marxist and being freed from the wall in Berlin 

The camps have been each different, every time she was a participant or a curator. Sometimes a university would be called or a festival wanted to do a workshop with them. When she did camps where she lives she had a grant. 

All the artists loved it or she seemed that they did, they were really close, you eat together, you talk about sound, You build things, you go somewhere.

She lived in a city all her life and then spent years touring and being in clubs. She got older and had a kid and now she has started to be not satisfied with being in clubs or night spaces. Or playing music at 3am and everyone is drunk and doesn’t care. If I want to keep doing music my whole life I want to learn and I don’t want to just be at a nightclub. After the pandemic, she loves that you can change your practice and listen to music in the morning. She was happy to move out of the city and live in nature more, first, she thought she could do these performances in the forests. It’s not satisfying to perform like that and it’s more of a collective practice with others, that has helped shape its success.

I found Antye’s demeanour and work to be captivating, and I do think this connects with my work well. The idea of sound and sound artwork representing pollution and the possibilities of field recordings somehow helping and bringing awareness to climate issues is presented in this lecture and my own work. I also found her sound camps something I would love to go and experience, similar to murmuration by Jez Riley French and Christ Watson who also run camps every year with an idea of exploring locale and environment though field recordings. I want to maybe try what she said about performing in other spaces that arent the night club, perhaps fight against the noise pollution in Stave Hill with my own sounds? Am I just contributing to the disturbance?

Categories
Visiting Practitioner Series

Visiting Practioner: Melia Roger

Melia Roger

Melia’s Bio is this.

Mélia Roger is a sound designer for film and art installation. She has a classical music background and owns a Master Degree in sound engineering (ENS Louis-Lumière, Paris, France). She spent her last year of Master in the Transdisciplinary Studies Program at ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland), where she developed an artistic approach of sound, working with voice and field recordings. She is now living between Paris and Zurich, working for post-production film and her own artistic works.

Her work explores the sonic poetics of the landscape, through field recordings and active listening performances. Exploring human non-humans relations, she tries to inspire ecological change with environmental and empathic listening. She believes in the importance of participatory projects in order to share knowledge and personal experiences through sound.  

Initial Thoughts:

I’m interested to see her speak about the sonic poetics of the landscape, I think it relates to my current recordings from Stave Hill. How can we look into environments and use sounds as a way of knowing the relationships between humans and nonhumans?

Waves of air and sand:

Waves of Sands is a two-screen video installation, 8 minutes long on a loop. The first video begins with Melia throwing her hydrophone microphones into the ocean. She then sits down and listens to the ocean and waves crashing amongst the microphones. She sits there listening for 8 minutes before packing up and leaving. I found the simplicity to be really striking, and very meditative as well. It reminded me of Jez Riley French’s work and his ideas around the microtonal sounds as interest.

The Second video was the other half of this, where Melia sits amongst the olive trees with a stereo pair of Clippy omnidirectional microphones hanged over a tree. She sits and listens in a similar context to the first video. i found the changing landscape and nature sounds to be of interest to me. It’s generative, it creates by itself, the beauty in randomness and the ability to sit and listen. Awaiting for something to potentially happen?

I really enjoyed these pieces but more from the ideas presented. I think the work although simple does have some depth.

Intimacy of lichens

This project took Melia to the Amazon rainforest, she created this tool which was two microphones attached to her hands as a tool for empathetic listening. Engaging through touch and performance as a way of understanding and deep listening. This project was done in Brazil through a residency. This project created a short film in partnership with Felix Blume and eventually into an installation that allowed participants to do their own empathetic listening with the tools she created, furthermore they were able to take the recorded performance home. In hopes, it would create an impact on the listener. I found this idea of empathetic listening something I hadn’t considered before. How can we listen with care and empathy to the nonhuman landscape around us? When does it become empathetic, to give our time and dedication? To attempt to understand?

Post-Lecture Reflection:

Melia begins by saying she will take us through her projects and that this will give us a beneficial experience in knowing her practice. She starts with Ghosts me (2018). It was about digital communication, being left on seen, or read, realizing that people have been connected, and spying on others and yourself. The application is always reminding you about what is going on. She decided to use this frustration as inspiration, ghosting is part of the subject matter within her work. This was her first attempt at an art installation, she displayed it in Belgium. The phone was on a desk, and the phone would ring and someone could answer. She created a persona of someone who would speak and explain why they didn’t want to speak, and you could leave a message back. She had around 80 messages of people leaving messages, about not being answered.

She kept the mic of the old telephone and she wants to take away from the aesthetic of the instant messages that everyone has. Vintage touch towards her installation. She showed us some of the messages left on her installation. 

This piece lead her to her final piece for her MA, how do you take this idea and take it further, relating it to social, a specific event, and an enlarged formatted idea. 

The voice is voices (2019)

Her piece focuses on voice, she was trying to combine this uncanny feeling you get with artificial voices. And to combine it closely with her identity. This was around the time when ai cloned voices simulating real people were in fashion. She did market research where she tried different tools and compared them. She worked with Nicolas Obin who is based in Paris and created a text-to-voice program. She recorded hours and hours of her own voice to feed the algorithm. One audio file per sentence and attached to the text file. The installation was a space with two voices, one human and one synthesized. The installation plays with the ideas between real and fake, the new wandering space, where identity is questioned.

Caring for the hum (2021)

4 channel setup, she wanted to create a link between the city soundscape of the location and some comments that she found online, she was interested in ventilation sounds. She had to find a link that is scientifically very heavy, air conditioners represent 10% of the global electricity consumption. But at the same time, lots of people find them relaxing to listen to. The juxtaposition between the climate issues but also the relaxation between the two interested her. She attempted to find a link between the two. She gathered different sounds from Zurich, and then she created a sound walk around the exhibition space, to listen to them with a lot of care and empathy. To listen and understand that they are present in the soundscape. The ventilation is always around, when you start to listen and pay attention they become so present.

Humeurs (2021)

She went back to record in four different locations where she had strong memories, following Limit and Zurich to Dietikon.

The piece explores intimacy with water, she used reverb heavily to create a dreamlike state towards herself and what the water sounds brought her. The piece is a mix of different recordings of the river and memories of the river. She made homemade hydrophones. This was more personal for her, to link the soundscape off this path. What were the sounds and places bringing to her? Recording and the act of writing were important to her. 

Waves of air and sand –

Attentive listening was the main idea for her, she felt it was important to show the listener the film. It helps with focusing attention, to give attentive listening. To show the waves moving the microphones as well really gives another layer for her.

Birds and wires (2021)

She worked with her partner, recording frogs in the pond. She attached microphones to the fence and left it for twelve hours with two Omni mics. The theme was Sonic intimacies.

Drop rig exempt from November (2022)

Fox and common cranes interaction at Lac Du Der, She found fascination in understanding and learning the sounds over time from listening and recording. She called it to dialogue with the environment but she considers it interaction. 

Bugs eating horse dung (2020)

She’s interested in the microtonal sounds of nature, recorded with contact mics. Timothy Norton and the ideas of intimacy without proximity. Marcus Maeder also is doing a Ph.D. in the sound reflections of soil and the intimacy within that.

Sand Fleas in jellyfish (2022) 

is also very similar, two aquarian H2A microphones inside of a jellyfish being eaten by sand fleas. 

The intimacy of lichens (2021)

She wanted to understand about who is playing and how we put the sonic attention between our ears and other beings. She tried through touch to give access to very tiny sounds with microphones she put on her hands. Using the body as the performer as the guiding instrument, with care and respect. 

She doesn’t want to bring awareness but just inspire listening to most who don’t have attentive listening. 

Listen with headphones she says.

Short film developed during the residency RESILIÊNCIA: artists in residence
at SILO, Serrinha do Alambari, SP BRAZIL Using a sonic device for empathic listening through touch

I found her overall lecture interesting because it really does come back to my current work. The last few projects with the ideas of microtonal sounds and intimacy without proximity really click within my current portfolio ideas. I need to develop it more but I think her ideas around how to respect other sounds and nonhuman worlds and bringing attention, through projects that guide attentive listening to be curious and impressive.